Proceedings of the Western Pharmacology Society

Teachers and researchers are valuable resources of universities. A healthy life style includes appropriate utilization of medicines. In this work we explore health status and medicine consumption among a sample of academic employees over 40 years of age at a Mexican university. We analyzed answers to an on line survey in a random sample of academic employees, 40 years and older who work at the National University of Mexico. The 179 item survey was answered from November 2009 to October 2010, by 240 randomly selected academic employees...

We evaluated the therapeutic potential of LA-419, a hybrid organic nitrate that donates nitric oxide and thiol groups, to improve pulmonary arterial hypertension in an experimental model induced by monocrotaline in the rat. Treatment with LA-419 from the first day after monocrotaline administration prevented the increase in pulmonary pressure as well as the increases in ventricle/body weight and pulmonary artery wall thickness. Administration of LA-419 after establishment of hypertensive status also resulted in an improvement of these parameters...

Blindness is a pervasive sensory condition that imposes diverse difficulties to carry on with activities of daily living. In blind individuals, the brain is subjected to a large scale reorganization characterized by expanded cortical territories associated with somatosensory and auditory functions and the recruitment of the former visual areas to perform bimodal somatosensory and auditory integration. This poses obstacles to efforts aimed at reassigning visual functions to the recruited visual cortex in the blind, especially after the end of the ontogentic sensitive period...

Speract, a decapeptide from Strongylocentrotus purpuratus sea urchin eggs, transiently stimulates a membrane guanylyl cyclase and activates a K(+)-selective channel that hyperpolarizes the sperm. Membrane potential recordings with fluorescent dyes in sperm flagellar vesicles were used to determine if calmodulin participates in the signal transduction induced by speract. The vesicle hyperpolarization induced by speract was inhibited by the calmodulin antagonists: trifluoperazine, mastoparan; N-(6-Aminohexyl)-5-chloro-1-naphthalenesulfonamide, (W-7); and N-(6-Aminohexyl)-1-naphthalenesulfonamide, (W-5)...

Ganoderma lucidum, a traditional Chinese medicine, has been shown to target the Central Nervous System. In this work we analyze whether G. lucidum, collected in Mexico, has a protective effect in the hippocampus of rats treated with kainic acid, a neurotoxin that causes seizures and neuronal loss. The aqueous extract of G. lucidum (10 mg/Kg, i.p.) was administered to rats 30 min before kainic acid injection (5 mg/Kg, i.p.). Animals that had received prior treatment with G. lucidum showed no tonic-clonic seizure activity...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of orlistat, a drug used in weight loss, on 5-HT and indicators of oxidative stress in rat brain. Orlistat, 12 mg/kg was administered to Wistar rats as single dose or successive doses on 3 consecutive days. Blood glucose and oxidative stress indicators were detected by measurement of lipid peroxidation, Na+, K+ ATPase, glutathione and serotonin levels using previous validated methods. The levels of glucose decreased in rats receiving successive doses. The activity of Na+, K+ ATPase and total ATPase was reduced in rats receiving successive doses, while the level of lipid peroxidation increased slightly in both groups...

Information related to adverse drug effects caused by ocular medications and ocular adverse effects of systemically administered drugs has increased over the last several decades. Here we review the medical literature over the last four decades to both quantitatively and qualitatively determine the adverse effects of ocular drugs and ocular toxicity of non-ocular drugs. A systematic bibliographic review of the literature was performed with the following terms: "drug treatment", "drug therapy", "ocular adverse effects", "ocular side effects", "ocular toxicity", "systemic side effects", "systemic adverse effects", "systemic toxicity", "ocular drug" and "ophthalmic drug" using the Boolean operators or, and, not...

Mycophenolate mofetil is an immunosuppressive pro-drug frequently used to prevent renal graft rejection. It is hydrolyzed by esterases to obtain the active drug mycophenolic acid (MPA). There is high inter-patient variation in mycophenolic acid pharmacokinetics. Area under the concentration versus time curve (AUC) is used for therapeutic drug monitoring and recommended levels are 30-60 microg x hr/L. The aim of this study was to determine mycophenolic acid pharmacokinetics in children awaiting renal allograft in order to predict mycophenolate mofetil dose requirements...

Measuring hepatic metabolic function is critical for detection and treatment of liver failure. Several tests have been widely used to characterize the integrity of liver; however, they do not evaluate the metabolic function of the organ, most requiring multiple blood draws. The purpose of this study was to establish if the ratio of the lidocaine metabolite monoethylglycinexylidide (MEGX) divided by lidocaine concentration at 30 min post intravenous lidocaine administration is a good marker of metabolic activity of the liver...

Low brain serotonin levels and high circulating levels of corticosterone are features of migraine. The 5-HT7 receptor was shown to mediate dilator responses to the 5-HT1B/1D and 5-HT7 receptor agonist, 5-carboxamidotryptamine in the middle meningeal artery of rats. Here we analyzed the effect of serotonin depletion and chronic corticosterone treatment on 5-HT7 receptor-mediated dilatation induced by 5-carboxamidotryptamine in the middle meningeal artery of anesthetized rats. Two weeks before experiments, male Wistar rats received i...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the pharmacological effect of FL-6, a new immunomodulatory drug, in chronic hepatitis immunologically induced in rats via porcine-serum (PS) administration. Thirty-two male Wistar rats (150 g) were divided into 4 experimental groups: (1) Control (PBS 0.5 ml 3-times per week for 8-week); (2) FL-6 (50 ng/kg 3-times per week for 4-week); (3) Hepatitis (PS 373 mg/kg twice per week for 8-week); and (4) Hepatitis + FL-6 (doses as above). Rats were sacrificed at the end of treatment...

Aminoglycosides such as streptomycin or gentamycin are employed to treat stubborn infections. In México, tuberculosis patients are successfully treated with 1 g/day for over 6 months. Ototoxicity is often seen as a consequence of prolonged treatment with aminoglycosides. In young people STP damages the vestibule of the ear; in elder patients it diminishes hearing and balance. These effects are due to streptidine, a metabolite of STP produced in elder patients and detected in blood by liquid chromatography...

Nitric Oxide (NO) is thought to play a fundamental role in the genesis and the spreading of epileptiform hyperactivity, although its function is unclear and controversial. As a free radical, NO may cause oxidative stress, which is emerging as an important mechanism in the etiology of seizure-induced neuronal death. Here we investigated the role of NO in seizure mechanisms through oxidative stress generation by studying the effect of anticonvulsant drugs such as amino oxyacetic acid (AAOA), valproate (VALP), diazepam (DIAZ) and gabapentin (GBPTNA) on oxidative stress in the brain, estimated as free carbonyls by the method of Dalle and Rossi, and by measuring NO by the indirect method based on the Griess reaction...

Bee products (BP) have been used for centuries as a diet complement with claimed curative properties. The aim of this study was to determine whether oral administration of BP prevented behavioral, histological, and biochemical alterations, caused by pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced kindling in rats. Male Wistar rats were employed to evaluate seizure latency, number and duration, performance in the open field test, histological alterations and mortality following BP administration. Oral administration of BP at two doses, 30 and 60 mg/kg/day, significantly lengthened latency of both clonic and tonic PTZ-induced seizures, decreased the duration and frequency of seizures and reduced mortality...

Tacrolimus is a macrolide immunosuppressant that is safe and effective for the prevention of rejection after kidney transplantation. The oral bioavailability of tacrolimus averages 20% to 25%; however, the inter-individual variability in this parameter is large. Because of the poor correlation of dose to blood concentration between patients, the variability in pharmacokinetics and a relatively narrow therapeutic window, therapeutic drug monitoring of tacrolimus trough whole blood concentrations must be a standard practice...

In their transit through the female genital tract, mammalian sperm acquire the ability to fertilize the egg in a process called capacitation. During this event the intracellular levels of cAMP and cGMP increase, suggesting that cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) channels, which have been identified in mammalian sperm, play a functional role in their physiology. Here we report an electrophysiological characterization of the effect of cyclic nucleotides on mouse sperm. Using the patch-clamp technique in the whole-cell configuration, we show that macroscopic ionic currents are augmented by the addition of both, 8Br-cAMP and 8Br-cGMP to non-capacitated mouse sperm...

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is one of the most important systems in blood pressure homeostasis and pathogenesis of cardiovascular-renal diseases. When blood volume goes down, juxtaglomerular cells in the kidneys secrete renin. Renin stimulates the production of angiotensin I (Ang I), which is then converted to angiotensin II (Ang II). Angiotensin II causes blood vessels to constrict, resulting in increased blood pressure. If the renin angiotensin system is over active, blood pressure will be too high...

Peripheral arterial occlusive disease is described as vascular disorders associated with ischemia and may be the result of an obstructive vascular process or a lost revascularization response. We have shown that gait locomotion analysis by video filming represents an integrative model for the evaluation of mechanisms involved in the process of ischemia-induced revascularization. However, analysis by this method can be subjective and perception errors may be occurring. We present the optimization of a quantifiable, noninvasive, reproducible method that analyzes ankle kinematics in rats using a two-dimensional digital video system...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by malfunction of dopaminergic systems, and the current symptomatic treatment is to replace lost dopamine. For investigating mechanisms of pathogenesis and alternative treatments to compensate lack of dopamine (DA) activity in PD, the 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned rat model of PD has been useful, these animals display apomorphine-induced contralateral rotational behavior, when they are examined after lesion. The purpose of this study was to assess Titania-dopamine (TiO2-DA) complexes implanted on the caudate nucleus for diminishing motor behavior alterations of the 6-OHDA rat model...

The aim of this review is to briefly describe some colorimetric methods that are commonly used to evaluate a new chemical entity (NCE) on cell cultures in non-clinical oncology discovery research. These methods have the distinct advantage over other techniques in that they can be applied and used in a cell monolayer or a suspension culture. Both protein assay determination and cell viability assays may be conducted using these culture systems. The viability of cell cultures is routinely assessed by utilizing the metabolic capacity of cells which biochemically convert chemicals (usually color dyes) which can then be conveniently measured at specific wavelengths using a multi-well plate reader...